There’s more to losing weight…

There is more to losing weight than eating right and working out. Unfortunately, our emotions play a huge role in our ability to shed those unwanted pounds.

Recently, I gained about 5 pounds, while working out 2 hours a day, and eating relatively well.  It was due to stress and turmoil in my life. I was working  to much, and worrying about whether to continue my job or leave it.  Stress raises the level of cortisol in our bodies, making it harder to shed the weight.

I am working on getting through a couple of books right now, that I am hoping will help me figure out how to balance stress with losing weight.  I easily have at least 20 pounds that I need to shed, but I have been battling for a few years now. Even while teaching 7 yoga classes a week, walking for an hour a day and lifting weights 3-4 times per week, I have been unable get rid of it, so I am looking at the reasons other than eating and working out that are causing the problem.

I am reading <a href=”Integrative Nutrition“>Integrative Nutrition, which is an excellent guidebook on how our bodies react to different diets. All of us are different, thus no one diet will work for all of us. We also need to examine our feelings and emotions while we are attempting to lose weight.

Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want is a book that helps you to identify your true life purpose, which in trade will help you to figure out exactly what it is you should be doing with your life! These insights, can help to strengthen your outlook, which again will help you to be able to control your weight in a more natural and healthy way.

The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person Helps you to think differently about losing weight to make it less of a chore and a more natural activity. Helping you to think like a thin person and work past the emotional eating that so many of us fall into.

I also just received today The Complete Artist’s Way: Creativity as a Spiritual Practice
Although not a book about losing weight, it is a book about finding yourself, getting back to, or finding the artistic side of yourself in a spiritual way. When we force back our spirit and follow a path that is not natural for us, we feel sad and helpless, which makes losing weight and being happy extremely difficult.

So, with these four books in hand, I will begin to work through the next 3 months and see if I can clear out the dust that is in my head, uncover the reasons why I am holding onto this 20 pounds that I don’t want, and read, journal, walk and practice yoga….finding myself….

yogajen

Biggest Loser was disappointing…

The Biggest Loser was a huge disappointment this time around.  Helen, the winner, let her overweight child go home. This wasn’t something most mothers would ever be willing to do. If it was me or one of my children, the child would ALWAYS come first, no matter what. I lost respect for her when she did that, and felt sorry for a child who had to know that her mother let her go home when she so desperately needed to be there.

Another problem was that Helen was one of the most self-centered people I have ever seen. I realize this is a reality show, where each participant was out to win, but Helen was a true disappointment.

The biggest problem, was getting to 117 pounds. This looked to be unhealthy and unnatural, potentially bordering on an eating disorder or perhaps some kind of addiction to weight loss. This show is intended to help people start to find a healthy balance. It was almost a deterent to weightloss to see her get SO skinny that she looked sickly. How to lose weight, get fit and find good health should have been the goal. It was unfortunate that Helen was the ultimate role model of this show.

Weight loss, taken as a slow and methodical process, will create a lifelong lifestyle change, where the weight can stay off long term.  I would really like to know, overall, how many of the people who have been on this show have managed to maintain the weight loss.

Fitness too, needs to fit the persons lifestyle. Being on the ranch is such a controlled environment, having only the things available that will help with weight loss. It eliminates work, children and any other of the distractions or normal living experiences that we all must deal with.  A better approach may be to help people workout in their “real world”. Help them eat right while cooking for a family and how to fit wellness into their day.  Most of us will never have the opportunity to leave our lives behind in order to get healthy. We need to do it in the real world.

Eating right and working out can fit into our daily lives, but it does take some work. Some of the best programs I have found are at Beachbody.com where you will have the opportunity to pick from a variety of fitness programs that come with eating programs as well.   You also get the opportunity to work with a virtual coach to help you find wellness on your terms, in a way that fits your lifestyle.

I would love to help you find fitness and wellness. If you are ready to get fit and lose some extra weight, take a look at Beachbody programs and let me know if you need help picking out a program.  I am here to help you succeed and find your healthy weight! I would love to help you lose weight at a healthy pace, and learn to eat well!!

Are you ready???

yogajen

Living on Less-A Lesson in Simplicity and Happiness

Simplicity….it is a philosophy I have toyed with over the years. Tonight we start our simplicity circle, to help to start to better define what simplicity truly means to each of our little group of 10.

Simplicity means different things to different people. To me, it means being able to work less, having more time to do the things I enjoy. The funny thing is, that many of the things I enjoy, technically ARE work, as I bring in an income by doing them. So, simplicity I guess then is doing the things you love, and living on the proceeds of those things. 

After leaving my full-time employment on June 12th, our income will for a brief period be less than 1/2 what it was when I was working full-time.  I intend to supplement that almost immediately with more yoga teaching, perhaps adding a class or two. I also intend to brush up on my violin playing and teaching skills, perhaps offering classes to little ones and maybe playing at a wedding or two.

I also intend to continue to help people find wellness through fitness, proper eating and supplementation. This will become my livelihood, my business and my income. It will be smaller than I was making, but much more fulfilling to me.

Living on less means giving up some of the luxuries in life, like $3 coffee and dinner out. It also means having the time to sip a leisurely cup of coffee while reading the morning paper, or putting a roast in the crockpot at noon to be savored later in the day.

Living on less means buying clothes at a thrift shop rather than at the store. It also means having hours to scour the racks at the local Goodwill if needed to find that perfect pair of jeans.

Living on less means that vacations have become more local events, like hanging out at the cabin on a random Wednesday, just because the sun was shining, or walking around the lake with a good friend, and stopping to watch the baby ducks cross the path with their mom. Gone are the flights to Mexico for 2 days, while you worry about how much work will have piled up while you were gone…hmmm….I think the walk and the cabin sound better, what do you think??

So, yes, there are trade-offs, but in my opinion, the trade offs are worth it. Not everyone will think so, and that is fine. If you want $400 suits and trips to Cancun, have fun! I will be here, sipping coffee, reading the paper and wearing my garage sale jeans….

have a great day!

jennifer

oh, and if you want to workout at home, take a look at Beachbody or if you need a really good multivitamin check out Natures Sunshine  Do you need a little more individual guidance to get a plan together? Visit me at http://www.yogafitnesswellness.com  and find a class or individual training session!

Reevaluating Finances-Eating HEALTHY on my new budget…

Ok, once you take the big leap, things need to change a bit on the finance front.  No longer can you just stop at the local coffee shop for a fill up whenever you get the coffee bug, nor can you just wander through the grocery store putting every little thing your heart desires into your cart.

During our lean years, when the kids were young, I had become the master grocery shopper, spending minimal amounts of money, while still feeding the family well.  The basics, I would stock up on when they were on sale, things like pasta sauce, noodles, canned tuna, beans, rice and such.  Then, I shop the sales to put together awesome meals.

I will be cooking more at home obviously as well, so the basics will change a bit, adding back in potatoes, onions, peppers and those things used to put together basic meals.  Anyway, today I started back to the old shopping ways, going to the store with my basic recipes in my head, and no list. This is the key! A list, unless it was created from the sales flyers, and leaves room for deals, will kill you at the grocery store. You will easily spend double what you will spend with my method if you take a list and stick to it.

So here we go! Today, I spent $29.01 including $2.40 worth of coupons, one for chicken, a free container of yogurt and $1.00 off the same batch of yogurt.  I purchased the following items for $29.01:

4 lbs of chicken breasts

2 bags of lettuce

10 containers of yogurt

onion and peppers

cantelope and bananas

2 boxes of organic frozen waffles

1 lb of cheese

lg  jar of baby dill pickles

garbanzo beans

2 pkgs of soft baked chocolate chip cookies

2 bottles of ranch dressing

gallon of soy milk

18 eggs

baking cocoa

I am currently cooking up the 4 lbs of chicken with the onions and pepper, which will be used to make chicken salad, and mexican chicken for tacos, as well as being used for salad topping. I already had a package of taco shells from a coupon last week, so I can use those up. 

Daily breakfasts will be either 2 frozen waffles, with syrup and cantelope or oatmeal with raisins(basics that I always have).  I will also do some protein shakes either for breakfast or lunch with the soymilk and bananas.

Snacks can be fruit or yogurt and I will be making a pan of chocolate muffins with the cocoa and some of my other basics, using some applesauce I found in the fridge to keep them low fat and healthy for me!

Lunch is always a salad with either chicken, boiled egg, tuna or garbanzo beans and some cheese. I make my own salad dressing or can use some salsa or a bit of the ranch dressing I bought.

Dinner is generally simple around here, since I teach yoga at 6, but being home, I can now put on some potatoes and a venison roast, and they can round it out with a frozen veggie or a salad. I can have a 1/2 of a chicken salad sandwich with some fruit or some pasta with sauce.  I am not a big meat eater, so the chicken will keep me in meat for the entire week, plus feed the boys at least once!

So, for a small amount of money per week, you can eat well and healthy.  I will probably need to pick up a couple of things during the week like milk, bread and possibly some snack items, but I am going to go back to the $50-$70 per week plan for groceries.

I am excited to start the challenge to see how little I can spend and we still eat well! 

yogajen

The Big Leap…

Weill folks, I finally did it…I took the big leap. I submitted my letter of resignation and effective June 12th, 2009, I will be “self-employed” once again.  I was working as a tax accountant.  It wasn’t a bad job, it wasn’t a bad company. Actually it was a good job, with a good company that paid well. It just wasn’t me.

I tend to not play well with others, so it didn’t suprise anyone who knows me well that this didn’t work out for long.  This was actually one of my longer stints, lasting almost 19 months.  I guess at some point in my life, hopefully now, I will come to the realization that the only boss I can really stand is myself, and that is sketchy some days.

I am one of those people who is on constant motion. I always have to have something to do, but I don’t sit well, so I can’t do the same thing for long.  I had a beautiful office, a corner one with windows and a big screen TV! I had dual monitors on my computer and some pretty cool artwork on the walls, but I was dying a bit inside each day. Sitting was making me insane. I waited patiently each day for the time when I could leave and go to teach yoga or go for a walk.  I longed to be outside, or reading a book or spending time with friends.

This job has taught me several things about myself.  I am a born teacher. It is what I am meant to do, and I need to foster that.  BUT, I would not be a good teacher in a confined setting, such as a school. I need to teach different stuff. I love to teach yoga and am going to do my pilates certfication and teach that. I love to coach people to fitness and plan to do more of that.  I am thinking about teaching violin lessons to little students, as I really enjoy music.  I am also looking at putting together a bootcamp and a holistic health course for community ed. 

A classroom would bore me just like a job does, so I have to be cognisant of what I am good at and what I love to do, and build a business and a life around those loves.

So, here I am, unemployed yet again, but very hopeful about the future! I can help people get fit, I can help them learn new skills and I can enjoy myself doing it…it is a big leap, but a leap I think will ultimately lead to a really cool business!!

Have a great weekend!

yogajen

What is your carrot??

If you want a horse to run fast, you put a carrot in front of their nose.  Money has often been called the carrot that keeps people working hard for long hours.  A rabbit is the “carrot” that they put in front of dogs to get them to run.

When we think about getting fit, we need to identify the “carrot” that will get us moving and keep us moving.  Start to think about what your carrot might be! 

I have a couple of carrots that I use at different times depending on how I am feeling about working out that day.  When I am teaching a class, my carrot is looking forward to helping others feel wonderful when we finish class.  When I am getting ready to go out and run, my carrot is the next race that I already signed up for, and need to make sure I can finish!!  When I am preparing to do any type of fitness activity, the carrot is the way I FEEL when I am done!

There are many days I don’t want to work out. There are many days when sitting on the couch, watching TV or putzing around on the computer would seem to be a much better idea.  Then I think about how I feel when I sit around, versus how I feel when I get in a decent workout, whether that be an hour of YogaPower or an awesome ChaleanExtreme workout, or a calming Yoga Booty Ballet DVD taking the time to do something physical everyday is an important part of my life.

Today, I was off work, and took the day to complete some tasks I had been putting off.  I decided to ride my bike everywhere today, and to focus on quality foods.  I got in a few miles of biking and lots of greens!  You can fit fitness in during your regular activities if you take the time to work out a plan.  There is also the 10-Minute Trainer program, which you can do in pieces when you have time. It is an awesome workout, with my favorite guy, Tony Horton. You won’t be disappointed if you pick it up.

It is important to spend some time doing physical activity everyday. Figure out what your carrot is? I work out because______________________. Then repeat it every time you are balking at getting out there…..

I work out because_____________________________________________________.

Now Just DO IT!!

yogajen

http://www.paths-to-fitness.com  if you are interested in a personalized plan!